Domestication of the Donkey: Aridity, Mobility and the Development of African Pastoral Societies

在国家科学基金会的支持下，菲奥娜·马歇尔博士和一个国际同事团队将在东北非、西欧和美国进行为期三年的考古和基因研究。该团队汇集了美国、葡萄牙/法国和厄立特里亚考古学、动物学以及现代和古代遗传学方面的专家，研究驴的驯化过程和时间。古代对家畜的使用塑造了全球社会变化的轨迹，以及当代牲畜的生物多样性。然而，人类驯养的大型哺乳动物很少，大多数是为了食物。驴(Equus Asinus)是古代世界大部分地区唯一的大规模交通工具。尽管驴和骡子在今天的非洲、亚洲和南美洲的许多地区仍然是重要的群体动物，直到第二次世界大战，骡子在西方社会中发挥了关键作用，但人们对它们的驯化背景知之甚少。驴的野生祖先非洲野驴(Equus Africanus)在非洲东北部被发现。由于驴出现在非洲前王朝时期的埃及遗址(6-5KYR BP)，学者们认为古埃及人驯养驴是为了运输和贸易。亚洲的驯化也得到了考虑。这个项目考虑了另一种假设，即驴是由古老的东北非洲牧民(7-6.5KYR BP)在非洲驯养的，因为该地区变得更加干旱，降雨量越来越不可预测。今天，驴在帮助非洲牧民社会应对不可预测的气候波动方面发挥着关键作用。它们被用来收集水和木柴，并运输家庭结构、货物、幼畜和儿童。使用驴子使牧民有更大的流动性来应对不稳定的降雨，并改善了人和牲畜的健康和种群动态。研究问题的性质要求收集三个不同领域的动物考古数据，收集现代参考材料，对现代骨骼进行形态测量研究，并分析考古标本。在厄立特里亚收藏四具现代非洲野驴骨架，在肯尼亚收藏四具驴骨架，将加强博物馆现有的非洲驴收藏品。从18头现代驴和12具现代非洲野驴骨架中收集的形态测量数据、测量数据和X射线将为区分驴和它们的野生祖先提供新的方法。将对来自六个东北非考古遗址的非洲野驴和驴进行动物考古研究，年龄从12到2000 KYR BP不等。10个古老的野驴样本将被提交AMS日期，15个样本将用于DNA分析。该项目将澄清驴在何时何地被驯化并纳入非洲早期牧区系统的问题。这项研究的学术价值将有助于促进关于驴的西南亚和非洲起源的长期辩论，为大型哺乳动物驯化过程中的变异提供新的理解，并重塑目前对非洲牧业发展的理解。该项目的更广泛影响是，它将通过收集世界上最濒危的大型野生哺乳动物之一--非洲野驴的骨骼和遗传信息，为保护生物多样性做出贡献。该项目还利用了考古学、畜牧业发展和保护生物学目前的目标之间的协同作用，并将为所有这三个目标做出贡献。将建立未来研究的基础设施，包括新的参考骨骼材料，以及现代和古代非洲野驴和驴骨骼测量的已出版和在线数据库。后者将有助于在没有比较材料的国家和地点识别孤立的标本。该项目还促进了欧洲、非洲和美国的遗传学家、动物学家和动物考古学家之间的跨学科国际合作。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Fiona Marshall and an international team of colleagues will conduct three years of archaeological and genetic research in northeast Africa, western Europe and the U.S.A. The team brings together U.S., Portuguese/French, and Eritrean specialists in archaeology, zoology, and modern and ancient genetics to examine the process and timing of domestication of the donkey. Ancient use of domestic animals has shaped global trajectories of social change, as well as the biodiversity of contemporary livestock. Humans have domesticated few large mammals, however, and most for food. Donkeys (Equus asinus) provided the only means of large-scale transport for much of the ancient world. Although donkey's and mules are still important pack animals in many areas of Africa, Asia, and South America today, and mules played a key role in western societies up through the Second World War, very little is known about the context of their domestication. The wild ancestor of the donkey, the African wild ass (Equus africanus), is found in northeastern Africa. Because donkeys appear in Predynastic Egyptian sites in Africa (6-5 kyr bp), scholars have suggested that ancient Egyptians domesticated the donkey for transport and trade. Domestication in Asia has also been considered. This project considers the alternative hypothesis that donkeys were domesticated in Africa by ancient northeast African cattle herders (7-6.5 kyr bp), as the region became more arid and rainfall increasingly unpredictable. Today, donkeys play a critical role in assisting African herding societies to cope with unpredictable climatic fluctuations. They are used to collect water and firewood, and to transport household structures, goods, young stock, and children. Use of donkeys allows herders greater mobility with which to face erratic rainfall, and improves the health and population dynamics of humans and livestock. The nature of the research question requires collection of zooarchaeological data in three different areas, collection of modern reference material, morphometric study of modern skeletons, and analysis of archaeological specimens. Collection of four modern African wild ass skeletons in Eritrea and four donkey skeletons in Kenya will strengthen scant existing Museum collections of African ass. Morphometric data, measurements, and x-rays collected from 18 modern donkeys and 12 modern African wild ass skeletons will contribute new, methods to discriminate between donkeys and their wild ancestor. Zooarchaeological studies will be conducted of African wild ass and donkeys from six northeast African archaeological sites ranging in age from 12-2,000 kyr bp. Ten ancient wild ass samples will be submitted for AMS dates, and 15 for DNA analysis. The project will clarify the question of where and when the donkey was domesticated and incorporated into early pastoral systems in Africa. The intellectual merit of the research will be to contribute to longstanding debates over southwest Asian vs. African origins of the donkey, to provide new understanding of variation in domestication processes among large mammals, and to reshape current understanding of the development of African pastoralism. The broader impacts of this project are that it will contribute to conservation of biodiversity, through assembling skeletal and genetic information on one of the world's most endangered large wild mammals, the African wild ass. The project also draws on synergies among current objectives in archaeology, livestock development, and conservation biology, and will contribute to all three. Infrastructure for future studies will be created, including new reference skeletal material, and a published and on-line database of bone measurements for African wild ass and donkey, modern and ancient. The latter will facilitate identification of isolated specimens in countries and locations without comparative material. This project also promotes interdisciplinary international collaboration among geneticists, zoologists, and zooarchaeologists in Europe, Africa, and the U.S.A.